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Open research questions in Economic and Technological Innovation

30 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 433 Economic and Technological Innovation papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • This study has several that must be acknowledged. First, the reliance on text-mining methods to proxy AI and DT intensity from annual reports, while innovative, is dependent on the quality and consistency of corporate disclosures. Second, the sample is confined to Chinese A-share the generalizability of findings to other economic or regulatory environments. Third, although the econometric methods used infer directionality and long-term relationships, they do not directly identify the causal mechanisms-such as leadership listed firms, which may limit decision-making, structure-that mediate the AI–DT dynamic. innovation culture, or organizational Building on these limitations, future research could pursue several specific directions. First, scholars could employ qualitative or mixed methods approaches-such as case studies or interviews-to uncover the micro-level mechanisms through which AI and DT reinforce each other. Second, future research might examine how organizational variables (e.g., leadership style, culture, governance) moderate the AI–DT dynamic. Third, longitudinal cross- country comparative studies could assess how institutional differences affect the co-evolution of AI and DT, extending the applicability of this model beyond China. Additionally, expanding the focus to include other digital technologies-such as blockchain, IoT, or augmented reality- and their interactions with AI and DT would offer a more comprehensive understanding of the digital transformation landscape. Finally, future work could assess performance outcomes, investigating how different trajectories of AI–DT interaction impact innovation, productivity, and competitive advantage over time.

    The Interplay of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation in Shaping Corporate Strategy: Insights from Chinese Enterprises · 2026 · DOI

  • A persistent challenge is measurement. Economics has struggled to move beyond stylised facts partly because there is no general theory of structural change and because sectoral dynamics are difficult to observe directly (Gabardo et al., 2017; Krueger, 2008; Schettkat & Yocarini, 2006). Recent advances in data availability have led to 1 3Journal of the Knowledge Economy research which shows the role of path dependency in structural change and growth. Structural change has been proxied by product and industry-relatedness (Neffke et al., 2011) and by product complexity (Hidalgo et al., 2007; Hidalgo & Hausmann, 2009). The assumption is that the diversification of product portfolios characterises economic development and that diversification paths of successful diversifiers are path-dependent, i.e., they are related in terms of capabilities (Hausmann et al., 2014). While powerful, this literature rests on several assumptions that are particularly restrictive for catching-up and assembly-based economies. First, it assumes that product complexity reflects the complexity of acquired capabilities. However, trade data, the basis for evidence on products, do not reflect the acquired capabilities in assembly-based economies well. The sophisticated export basket of these economies hides the de facto low-complexity assembly of high-tech goods (Schteingart, 2015). As a result, for example, Hungary ranks ahead of the U.S. in terms of country complexity.1 Second, it assumes that long-term growth is a process of continuously related product diversification. Countries or regions do not develop simply by diversifying into any new industry, but rather by branching out into technologically related industries (Neffke et al., 2011). To overcome the limitations of industry classification, Neffke et al. (2011) derive industry-relatedness from the co-occurrence of products from different industries in the portfolios of manufacturing plants (Neffke et al., 2011). However, similar products may have different underlying capabilities or skill levels reflected in the quality. For example, Dulleck et al. (2005) show that quality upgrading is a critical dividing line among Central and East European economies. Measuring the proximity of products as the frequency with which they are co-produced by individual countries/plants signals similarity in the underlying capabilities. However, technology upgrading is reduced to product variety and ignores process innovation or quality upgrading. Third, evidence suggests that diversification is largely independent of relatedness, and that the source of path dependency in international specialisation patterns lies primarily in generic production capabilities rather than in relatedness in the product space (Nomaler & Verspagen, 2024).

    Exploring Structural Convergence: Dynamics of Technology Diversification among World Regions · 2026 · DOI

  • ABSTRACT Although economic complexity (ECI) is closely linked to structural transformation, its implications for inclusive green growth (IGG) remain underexplored, particularly in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA).

    Does Economic Complexity Promote Inclusive Green Growth in Developing Economies? · 2026 · DOI

  • Few studies have examined the economic consequences of deploying artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in less-developed cities, where policies have often failed.

    AI and robotics as drivers of China’s urban innovation · 2026 · DOI

  • Purpose Literature reviews unanimously report an affirmative influence of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities on circular economy practices (CE), whereas empirical investigations, although scarce, do not align with these assertions and exhibit conflicting findings.

    Influence of AI on CE: underlying roles of network centrality and green product (process) innovations in manufacturing industry · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper discusses how Aumann's agreement theorem may lead scholars to treat consensus as evidence for truth under common event space assumptions, but does not develop a formal framework for distinguishing when expert disagreement reflects epistemically-virtuous subjective event spaces versus when it reflects irrationality or dishonesty in contexts like forensic science or economics.

    Of ticks and tigers: Subjective event spaces in complexity economics · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper proposes 'competitive self-regulation' as a corrective to epistemic monopoly in expertise but leaves the proposal incomplete, providing no operational definition of how competitive self-regulation would function in practice within regulated domains like crime labs or financial institutions, or how to measure its effectiveness in sustaining interpretive frame diversity.

    Of ticks and tigers: Subjective event spaces in complexity economics · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper proposes that monopoly power in expertise (using forensic science as an example) suppresses discovery of subjective event space diversity through self-reinforcing framework convergence, but does not specify quantitative metrics or empirical protocols for measuring when expertise monopoly has created inappropriate framework convergence versus legitimate scientific consensus in specific fields.

    Of ticks and tigers: Subjective event spaces in complexity economics · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies that antitrust analysis, financial regulation, and industrial policy all implicitly assume regulators and regulated agents share an event space, but does not provide concrete methodologies for how regulators should model or discover the subjective event spaces of regulated agents when designing policy interventions in these three domains.

    Of ticks and tigers: Subjective event spaces in complexity economics · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper asserts that subjective event spaces solve problems better than objective event spaces but provides no concrete empirical demonstrations. The authors explicitly state 'The value of assuming subjective event spaces must be proved by examples' and ask 'What problems in pure or (especially) applied economics are more readily or satisfactorily solved by assuming many subjective event spaces rather than one objective event space?' without providing case studies that directly compare solutions under both frameworks.

    Of ticks and tigers: Subjective event spaces in complexity economics · 2026 · DOI

  • The institutional quality threshold of 50 used to create dummy variables is arbitrary; different threshold values or continuous measurement approaches could yield varying results on the moderating effect.

    The Impact of Innovation on Economic Complexity: The Role of Institutions · 2026 · DOI

  • This study aims to address the existing gap in the literature by analyzing the presence of significant clusters among countries based on five strategic AI-related indicators: Hiring, Skill Penetration, Talent Concentration, Talent Migration, and Newly Funded AI Companies.

    GLOBAL AI CLUSTERS: STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN SKILLS, TALENT, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP · 2025 · DOI

  • While the literature identifies that AI governance requires coordination between multiple institutions and governance models, there is no concrete analysis of institutional mechanisms or negotiation strategies through which middle powers can effectively participate in or influence the coordination of the fragmented regime complex, particularly when facing pressure from geopolitical competition between major powers.

    Global AI governance: barriers and pathways forward · 2024 · DOI

  • While existing literature maps the nascent landscape of international AI governance institutions and identifies a governance deficit, there is no systematic analysis of how middle powers—nations with significant AI capabilities but limited institutional influence in Western-led bodies—can effectively shape or participate in emerging multilateral AI governance mechanisms, particularly given the rise of alternative institutional designs like WAICO that explicitly challenge incumbent Western-led governance structures.

    Global AI governance: barriers and pathways forward · 2024 · DOI

  • The results obtained by static analysis (Feasible Generalized Least Squares method) indicate positive relationships between the application of artificial intelligence in large enterprises in European Union countries and economic growth, while the analysis of welfare and social disparities leads to mixed results: increasing the average net income per person, respectively, the poverty threshold and decreasing the number of people at risk of poverty and unemployment.

    The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Applied in Businesses on Economic Growth, Welfare, and Social Disparities · 2024 · DOI

  • The interorganizational diffusion of BT is not explored in existing studies, requiring a comprehensive investigation for better government policymaking.

    Blockchain Adoption among Multi-Stakeholders under Government Subsidy: From the Technology Diffusion Perspective · 2023 · DOI

  • The national innovation systems are becoming globalized; thus the distinct process of creation, dissemination and implementation of high technologies is becoming globally fragmented and therefore the added value distribution within the global value chain (GVC) should be investigated.

    Creation of High Technologies: Comparative Analysis of Countries · 2019 · DOI

  • Future research should address these constraints by combining patent analytics with non-patent databases—such as open-source software repositories, sci- entific publications, and policy whitepapers—to provide a more holistic view of the digital resilience landscape.

    Cyber resilience in the Anthropocene: a socio-technical complexity analysis of patent innovation gaps and strategic technology diplomacy · 2026 · DOI

  • The framework reconciles contradictory findings from prior literature by visualizing the complete functional form of the broadband–growth relationship without imposing a parametric specification.

    Wires, Patents and Growth: An Explainable Machine Learning Approach for What Drives Digital Competitiveness in the European Union · 2026 · DOI

  • The study focuses on the direct and moderating effects of institutional quality on the innovation-economic complexity link, but the mechanisms through which institutions enable productive capability acquisition warrant deeper investigation.

    The Impact of Innovation on Economic Complexity: The Role of Institutions · 2026 · DOI

  • Previous literature on the impact of the application of artificial intelligence in businesses on economic growth, welfare, and social disparities is scarce, due to limited data and the recent dynamics of the field.

    The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Applied in Businesses on Economic Growth, Welfare, and Social Disparities · 2024 · DOI

  • It further provides a detailed theoretical and conceptual understanding relating to the philosophy and establishes an interrelation amongst these under-researched growth-accelerating factors.

    An analysis of growth-accelerating factors for the Indian automotive industry using modified TISM · 2020 · DOI

  • Recent years have seen an ‘electoral turn’ in research on the welfare state, but works that link developments in electoral politics to those in the political economy remain scarce (cf.

    Pablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt, and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds), 2015,<i>The Politics of Advanced Capitalism</i>, Cambridge University PressPablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt, and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds), 2015,<i>The Politics of Advanced Capitalism</i>, Cambridge University PressPablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt, and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds), 2015,<i>The Politics of Advanced Capitalism</i>, Cambridge University Press · 2016 · DOI

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30 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 433 Economic and Technological Innovation papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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